July 21, 2024 – Downeast Camden, ME
Our day began as heavily overcast with light rain. We packed up and made the short drive to Camden Hills SP near Camden, ME. The campsites did not have water or electricity but were nice. Ours bordered a large open field so sunlight penetrated the otherwise heavily wooded campground.
We explored the downtown area and returned to the campground for a quiet, dreary late afternoon.
Dinner was tacos & string beans, tasty if uninspiring. Just had to get in a veggie!
July 22, 2024 – Downeast Camden, ME
The day dawned clear, sunny & mild. We started off with a drive up Mt Battie which overlooks the downtown and picturesque Camden harbor.
Heading to the next little town of Rockport, we drove around looking for a small restaurant we’d had breakfast in years ago with our friend, Eaton. We couldn’t find it and think it might have been on what is now the footprint of a new hotel that now overlooks the harbor.
We did locate the Rockport Boat Club to which Eaton had belonged and where he kept his dinghy.
We also crossed a stream to a park on the water which still sports the ruins of three old lime kilns.
Sadly, Bill was not feeling well so we returned to the camper and spent the rest of the day reading and napping. We had canned soup for dinner.
July 23, 2024 – Downeast Camden, ME
It rained all morning. We headed downtown for breakfast at the Camden Deli. Bill had breakfast but the place did not do an acceptable job for Sandy’s gluten issue. We later found Camden Bagel where they had GF bagels and a good egg sandwich!
Maine’s wild blueberries are legend and they were in season. Brodis Blueberries is a family operation that has quite a spread of these close-to-the-ground vines. They offer berries by the quart and lots of blueberry products like jam, syrup and even blueberry enhanced spirits that they distill and flavor right in their store. Imagine, blueberry gin? Yup, they make it!
We also learned a thing or two about wild blueberries. They are truly wild, unlike the domestic, high-bush varieties we normally buy in stores. Fields of these much smaller berries are created by weeding out competing plants and shrubs over the years so that only the blueberry vines remain. They are biannual, bearing fruit only every other year so they have alternating fields. This year’s producing vines will be cut back with a flail mower after the harvest and be tended the following year by painstakingly weeding out invasive species.
We purchased some of their blueberry jelly and treated ourselves to ice cream topped with blueberry sauce. Yummy!
July 24, 2024 – Downeast Camden, ME
Another all-rain morning!
We wanted to follow up on friend, Lin’s, recommendation to visit the Project Puffin Visitor Center in Rockland. Google Maps first directed us to a puffin-themed gift shop but we knew that was wrong. Then we found the right place just up the block. Lin and her husband supported this Audubon Seabird Institute project to restore a hunted-to-extinction Downeast puffin population to an historic nesting rock island off the Maine coast named Eastern Egg Rock.
Beginning in 1973, small numbers of puffin chicks were translocated from Great Island, Newfoundland, to man-made nesting places on Eastern Egg Rock. Hand fed until they fledged they were banded. Gradually, after spending a normal year or two at sea, these birds began to return to Eastern Egg Rock and, today, the population is self-sustaining. This successful project has since been extended to several other locations and species.
We chose to have an early dinner at Hill’s Seafood Co in Rockland. It was a very good choice! Sandy’s broiled haddock was delicious. And Bill’s dinner of Pete’s Hot Dogs & Mac N Cheese was a dream come true for him. We didn’t order it but we saw served one of their specialty drinks called “Bill’s Excellent Adventure”. It was a bloody Mary garnished with a shelled lobster claw, bacon, pickle and fruit; all the food groups in a single glass.
